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| The official Pet Shop Boys thread; New album "Super" | |
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| Topic Started: Oct 30 2008, 11:59 AM (18,097 Views) | |
| Deleted User | Mar 22 2009, 11:18 PM Post #361 |
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you don't like Red Letter Day? that's one of my faves |
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| Deleted User | Mar 22 2009, 11:27 PM Post #362 |
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I think Yes notwithstanding, I'd rank the albums as 1. Very 2. Behaviour 3. Actually 4. Introspective 5. Bilingual 6. Please 7. Fundamental 8. Nightlife 9. Release I think when all's said and done, Yes will probably rank just above or below Actually. Nightlife and Release are the only ones I really consider patchy, while Very and Behaviour are five star masterpieces IMO. |
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| GimmeSomeRiver | Mar 22 2009, 11:42 PM Post #363 |
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When I lay in bed I touch myself and I think of you
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I think Love etc was a great first release. It was a great marriage of the PSB and Xenomania sound, very classy understated and catchy. Also it was one of the three Xenomania co-writes so maybe they demanded it was released for the royalties. |
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| GimmeSomeRiver | Mar 22 2009, 11:46 PM Post #364 |
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When I lay in bed I touch myself and I think of you
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Ooooh rank the PSB albums time. Ok here goes: 1. Introspective (oooh controversial etc) 9.5/10 2. Very 9.5/10 3. Please 9/10 4. Actually 9/10 5. Yes 8.5/10 6. Fundamental 8/10 7. Behaviour 8/10 8. Nightlife 7.5/10 9. Bilingual 7/10 10. Release 7/10 |
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| Riverwide | Mar 22 2009, 11:49 PM Post #365 |
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I never understand why "Release" fairs so poorly on peoples' charts. I think the songwriting on that album is very, very strong. Wonderful melodies and lyrics throughout. It just seems that when they aren't doing their pop dance stuff, people aren't that interested. |
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| Riverwide | Mar 22 2009, 11:52 PM Post #366 |
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1. Very 2. Behaviour 3. Yes 4. Fundamental 5. Release 6. Actually 7. Please 8. Nightlife 9. Bilingual 10. Introspective |
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| GimmeSomeRiver | Mar 22 2009, 11:52 PM Post #367 |
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When I lay in bed I touch myself and I think of you
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Actually I really like Release too. It's just that all of their stuff is SO strong. Home And Dry is one of my fav PSB songs ever. I deeply appreciate all of their albums. |
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| Funkster | Mar 22 2009, 11:54 PM Post #368 |
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Teenager
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I, for one, really like Release. Neil's voice goes great with a more acoustic sound, hence why I love his rendition of Rent on the Somewhere DVD. It's beautiful. Album ranking time... Very Behaviour Yes Introspective Release Actually Please Fundamental Bilingual Nightlife |
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| Riverwide | Mar 22 2009, 11:59 PM Post #369 |
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Read this hateful chart commentary from James Masterson of Yahoo music. Then feel free to shit in a box and send it to him. What an ugly, hateful little cunt. If something isn't Top 10, it seems to have absolutely no value to him. How sad. Appropriately enough the next single is not so much inspired by the 1980s, but performed by one of the acts whose work from that decade informs and influences the production of both the Lady Gaga and La Roux singles. Fresh from their "outstanding contribution" gongs at last months Brit awards, the Pet Shop Boys arrive at Number 14 with brand new single 'Love Etc.', their highest charting single for three years and a release which means they can boast a hitmaking career spanning an impressive 23 years. Now assessing any new work by Tennant and Lowe in chart terms is actually something of a minefield, for had a certain other set of 80s veterans not set the standard a few years earlier, our benchmark for chart uselessness might well have been called "Pet Shop Boys Syndrome". Here's the problem: it doesn't matter how much work they put into their new album, how much press they do to promote it or how well received it is critically. This new single and new album 'Yes' (released this week) will sell to absolutely nobody outside their long-term hard core of fans. This blunt statement isn't just based on the perfunctory in and out performance of just about every single they have released in the last ten years, but the utterly dismal sales performance of their albums. Of all the records they have released since 1999, Greatest Hits collection 'Pop Art' is the only one that can boast a shelf life beyond a month. Just check out the stats. 1999's 'Nightlife' spent two weeks on the album chart, 2002's 'Release' just one. Their 2006 offering 'Fundamental' may have been hailed as an impressive return to form when first released but it too just had a four week chart run before vanishing forever. It saddens me to see it, as the Pet Shop Boys were my favourite group growing up and I avidly collected every single one of their releases during the 80s and 90s. I don't point this out from the position of someone who dislikes their music but the sad truth is that the cultural and creative contribution of their music these days is almost precisely zero. 'Love Etc.' may well be one of the most fun, pop-focused and commercially appealing records they have made in a long time, but I can almost guarantee that you won't find it on the Top 75 within a fortnight and whilst 'Yes' may well have a Top 10 debut on the album chart next week, you won't find it in the shops by Easter. That my friends is Depeche Mode syndrome, and you have to wonder why they continue to bother. http://new.uk.music.yahoo.com/blogs/chartwatch/2880/week-ending-march-28th-2009/ |
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| Deleted User | Mar 23 2009, 12:01 AM Post #370 |
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I applaud them for doing a more guitar/rock oriented album, but I think it seemed like a lot of the b-sides off Release were stronger than the tracks on the actual album. I loved I Get Along, London, Here and Home And Dry but the rest of it was just neither here nor there to me. Still, Release was better than 90% of Erasure's output from the past 15 years
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| Riverwide | Mar 23 2009, 12:04 AM Post #371 |
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Erasure?? Oh don't even go there! ![]() I just can't agree about "Release". As well as the ones you mentioned, "Birthday Boy", "Love Is A Catastrophe", "E-mail" and "You Choose" are all gorgeous. I even love that "Samuari In Autumn" track. |
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| Riverwide | Mar 23 2009, 12:13 AM Post #372 |
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Glowing review from The Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/album-pet-shop-boys-yes-parlophone-1651507.html Album: Pet Shop Boys, Yes, (Parlophone) Just don't call it a return to form... Reviewed by Simon Price Sunday, 22 March 2009 Let us dispense, right away, with any clichéd crit-speak about a "stunning return to form". Show me when the Pet Shop Boys ever lost it, and I'll call you a liar. The 10th PSB album kicks off with "Love Etc", the sentiments of Prince's "Kiss" given a Noughties makeover by Brian "Xenomania" Higgins, whose magic fingers are also all over "The Way It Used to Be" and "More Than a Dream", an unstoppable piece of future-pop along the lines of Girls Aloud's "Call the Shots". The Higgins-free "All Over the World" is just as irresistible: Jeff Lynne and Tchaikovsky to a disco beat. Tennant's lyrical themes lean towards celebrity culture: "Pandemonium" tells the Pete 'n' Kate story from model Moss's point of view, and miraculously makes them likeable. Songs like "King of Rome", "Beautiful People" and "Legacy" have an autumnal poignancy, which a casual observer might ascribe to the duo's middle age. But go back and listen to 1990's "Being Boring", and be honest: when was that mood ever not there? Pick of the album: Go west, east, north and south: 'All Over the World' |
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| Deleted User | Mar 23 2009, 12:14 AM Post #373 |
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I think with Release, it's the fact that PSB have set such high standards in the past that an album like Release is regarded as their worst when a lot of bands would have a masterpiece with the same record. I think the more I think of it, I should switch it with Nightlife which IMO was the least inspired album of their career |
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| Riverwide | Mar 23 2009, 12:17 AM Post #374 |
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Yeah, I have real problems with "Nightlife". Ironically, it just happens to contain my favourite ever song of theirs, "You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You're Drunk". |
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| Deleted User | Mar 23 2009, 12:20 AM Post #375 |
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Harsh, but true. |
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| Riverwide | Mar 23 2009, 12:24 AM Post #376 |
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His chart observations are true. His point about "Why should they bother?" is pathetic. Anyone who agrees with him must also be some sort of imbecile too. Imagine thinking that music is only worthwhile if it sells. That's really, really sad. |
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| GimmeSomeRiver | Mar 23 2009, 12:27 AM Post #377 |
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When I lay in bed I touch myself and I think of you
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So their CREATIVITY has run dry because they're not chart busters anymore and they should stop bothering? Well I guess we can all see why this petty little person is not an ARTIST and only WRITES about them. He really has NO IDEA. Pathetic. |
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| Riverwide | Mar 23 2009, 12:28 AM Post #378 |
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It really is unbelievably pathetic. What kind of a sad bastard must this guy be. I bet he's one of those anal-retentive chart freaks who has no real interest in music whatsoever, just where it charts. I despair. I really do. |
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| GimmeSomeRiver | Mar 23 2009, 12:30 AM Post #379 |
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When I lay in bed I touch myself and I think of you
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Imagine if all the acts that weren't platinum sellers just said 'oh well, what's the point of making art and expressing ourselves since we're not selling to joe public. we might as well hang it up'. Then we would be left with... Britney Spears and Lady GaGa basically. What a nightmare. And the same with movies. All we would get would be Jerry Bruckheimer trash. Don't get me wrong, I love Britney and Transformers but it would be an artistically bankrupt era if all we had was that.
Edited by GimmeSomeRiver, Mar 23 2009, 12:32 AM.
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| Deleted User | Mar 23 2009, 12:30 AM Post #380 |
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I agree with the last part. It reminds me a few weeks ago of this Fleetwood Mac biography I saw on Bio channel (one of the cheap biographies that use no music because they didn't even bother to use rights and interviewed nobody in the band) and this chart historian was there talking about how Tusk was their worst album because it didn't sell as well as Rumours. Ummm, maybe it was their least successful album with the classic lineup but I have never met a FM fan who would say Mirage was a superior record to it. So what if PSB can't sell like they could 20 years ago, they're still here and still making great music unlike a lot of others who were big at the same time they were. It's nice to sell records and chart well but I'd rather hear a great record that sells 100k worldwide total than a piece of shit that finds its way into five million or more households. |
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